“You know what a Motel 6 and Luke’s jeans have in common? There’s no ballroom.”
Blake Shelton on his buddy Luke Bryan
Today was a travel day. The goal was to get as close to Kansas City as possible. There was a secondary goal that ended up becoming the highlight of the day. Keke keeps coming up with side attractions as we make our way to our next destination. Today’s was to visit Blake Shelton’s restaurant Ole Red in Tishomingo, Oklahoma. I believe he was from a nearby town, and now has a ranch in the area.
We pulled up to the restaurant excited to check it out. The exterior decor is well done, but it isn’t flashy to the point where it sticks out from the rest of the 3,000 person town’s main street. We parked right across the street and noticed that there were large buses down a blocked off street near the restaurant. The restaurant itself is one building in from the corner, but on the corner is The Doghouse, a bar that Blake Shelton owns. We came to find out that the bar is having it’s grand opening this weekend, and Luke Bryan would be playing that evening, with Blake Shelton playing the following night.
Only 250 tickets were sold for each concert at a price of $250 a piece. Both concerts sold out quickly. I am slightly glad that they were sold out because if they weren’t, I’d have been writing this from Tishomingo and be $1,000 poorer. That would have been two concerts too epic to pass up, and Keke wouldn’t have allowed us to do so.
Alas, no dice on getting into the concert. We did have lunch in the restaurant, however, and really liked it. We shared deep fried tomatoes as an appetizer ($10), and I imbibed on whiskey sours ($4 on special).
For lunch, Keke chose the honey glazed chicken which looked good, but entirely too healthy for my liking. I went with the Redneck Tacos. I think it was that they were made with brisket that made them “redneck,” it also made them really freaking good.
There was a lone singer with an acoustic guitar providing the afternoon entertainment, and though the room was not full when we went, there was a lot of activity about. We may have stayed a while longer just in the hope to catch a glimpse of the superstars. Instead, we had a great time talking to some really cool people working at the restaurant and the adjacent gift shop.
Keke would have likely stayed all day, but we would have justified our time there with me drinking the whole time, and that was not a good idea for anyone, so we headed out of town. Keke spent much of the next hour or so mostly quiet with the few times she’d speak spent rationalizing as to why we had to leave.
We actually had a long day on the road ahead of us, so we made our way through Oklahoma and into Missouri. As we continued in Missouri she checked on the tickets for for the concerts yet again; I have no idea why. Of course, then five hours away from Tishomingo, OK, she found that there were tickets released for the Blake Shelton night. I couldn’t believe I had to say it, but I did: “No Keke, we cannot drive all the way back.”
Thirteen and a half hours later we arrived in Kansas City for an overnight at a Super 8 ($60). The forecast for the following day was all day thunderstorms, and between that and the fact that they are playing the Yankees, we postponed our KC baseball experience till another day. Keke misses Soren too much anyway.